The Concord Blue Devils won their 16th DCI World Championship on Saturday night in Indianapolis. The Blue Devils scored a 99.65 (the highest score ever in DCI) in their final performance. The Bluecoats (97.175) won 2nd place and The Cadets (96.875) placed 3rd. The Blue Devils had an amazing year, winning every competition leading up to finals. The Santa Clara Vanguard placed first in percussion for their final performance.

For complete results and recap analysis, check out DCI.org. Congratulations to The Blue Devils.

Were you there or did you watch it live? What were your favorite moments of the season? Leave a comment and let us know what you thought of the 2014 DCI season.

Attention all auditioning orchestral percussionists: audition for Japan’s “New World” Symphony; the Hyogo PAC Orchestra. I recently returned from a healthy week long visit to HPAC for the PAC Percussion! series of concerts on August 2nd and 3rd. Every year in August the orchestra organizes two concerts (the same) featuring the PAC percussion section with a guest artist. For more information about this years concerts click here.

As it turns out there is an inspirational story around the orchestras inception. According to HPAC’s site: “During the decade following the great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, the courage, persistence, and compassion of Hyogo’s local residents brought about a miraculous renewal of the devastated region.” In 2005 the orchestra opened as a symbol of cultural rebirth of the region. Since then it has seen it’s 4 millionth audience.

HPAC orchestra is a resident orchestra exclusively affiliated with Hyogo Performing Arts Center under artistic direction of Yutaka Sado. During a three-year term, 48 international core members under the age of 35 engage in a variety of performance opportunities
including full orchestra and chamber orchestra concerts, a fully-staged opera, and chamber ensemble performances of standard and modern repertoire. They are joined in these performances by leading conductors, guest players and coaches from around the world. The HPAC program offers professional development for Core Members through master-classes and private lessons with visiting artists.

The facilities are immensely impressive and the center, being fully government funded, spares no expense when it comes to putting on productions and concerts. I had a first class experience. So, I share this post as an advocate for the center as it seems a bit unknown. Be sure to explore the source link above for more information.

Where you aware of this opportunity? Have any others that fit into this category? Please share your thoughts below the post.

Chapters 3 – 5 take place in Gary’s early years (around 1959 – 1962). He continues to talk about growing up in Indiana and starting college at the Berklee School of Music. Chapters 6 – 9 are the beginning of the section marked “Apprenticeship” and include his move to New York (when he meets Joe Morello), his time with George Shearing and then Stan Getz. I am enjoying reading about his experiences and lessons he is learning at a very young age.

“Sometimes, we play because we really want to play; sometimes we play as a favor for another musician; and sometimes, it’s just because we need the money. Despite countless hours of practice and concentration to elevate our art, we all too often have to put that aside because of circumstances.” – Gary Burton [Chapter 4, pg. 48-9]

Below, you will find the listening resources. I am also going to put together a Spotify playlist and I will add a link to it on this post. If you find something that is not correct or missing, please let me know.

Chapter 3: The Local SceneThe Nashville All-Stars – After the Riot at Newport

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slZ4vg5L-8g

Chapter 4: College Bound
No musical examples

Chapter 5: New AdventureNew Vibe Man in Town (1961) [Gary’s First Album as a Leader] – Selections

BookChattr is starting soon. Come join the DrumChattr community and read Learning to Listen: The Jazz Journey of Gary Burton: An Autobiography by Gary Burton. I started the book last week and I am really enjoy it. The style of writing is conversational and the information is informative and insightful. As I was reading the first couple of chapters, I starting think about how I would like to listen to the pieces Gary talks about in the book. So I decided to put together a resource guide (similar to the Steve Schick Listening Guide Part 1 & Part 2 that I compiled when we read his book). While some of these recordings are probably not the exact recordings Mr. Burton heard, I wanted to familiarize you with the pieces. If there is something I missed or if there is another version we should listen to, please leave your comments below and I will add them to the post.

A seven time Grammy Award winner, Gary Burton was born in 1943 and raised in Indiana. He taught himself to play the vibraphone and, at the age of 17, made his recording debut in Nashville, Tennessee, with guitarists Hank Garland and Chet Atkins. In the 1970s, Burton began his music education career with Berklee College of Music in Boston. Burton began as a teacher of percussion and improvisation at Berklee in 1971. In 1985 he was named Dean of Curriculum. In 1989, he received an honorary doctorate of music from the college, and in 1996, he was appointed Executive Vice President, responsible for overseeing the daily operation of the college.

Starting July 1st, we’ll read a few chapters a week. Each week, we will be putting up summaries and discussion points for the chapters. (Please use the link above to purchase your book. If you use this link, you will help support DrumChattr.)

After we finish the book, we will put together a Google Hangout to talk about the book. I am also going to email Mr. Burton and see if he will join us for an interview. Thanks and enjoy the book!

On June 14, 2012, Bob Cole Conservatory faculty member Dr. Michael Carney passed away from a long battle with cancer. On that day, I lost a colleague, friend and mentor. It is still hard to believe that Michael is gone, but I truly treasure all of the time I had to spend with him. I learned more than more than just music from Michael. My only hope is that I can be such an influence on as many people as Michael was. I will miss Michael, but I will continue to teach, play, direct and mentor current and future percussion students just Michael did with me and my fellow percussionists.

Today, we are celebrating Michael’s life with a memorial concert in the Carpenter Performing Arts Center at CSU, Long Beach. There will be performances by the CSULB World Percussion Group (performing West African and Brazilian Samba music) Pandemonium Steel Drum Band (Michael’s professional group), Noelle Carney, and Lucky7 Latin Jazz.

Below is a tribute that Carolyn Bremer, chair of the Music Department, wrote after Michael’s passing:

Dr. Carney was Director of Percussion Studies at the Bob Cole Conservatory for thirty-one years. He taught generations of percussionists and directed the World Percussion Group, Steel Drum Orchestra, and the Drums and Drummers Project. He taught classes in World Music required for all music majors and also open to the entire university.

Michael traveled the world performing, teaching, and studying. His performance expertise ranged from classical to jazz, and included musical instruments and styles from West Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil. In the summer of 2005, Michael completed his first jazz concert tour of Brazil, performing vibraphone and steel pan in concerts. His concert in Rio de Janeiro was honored by the Jazz Society of Rio de Janeiro as the #2 International Jazz Concert of the Year (Wayne Shorter was #1) and Carney was named as the #3 International Jazz Musician of the Year (tied with Wynton Marsalis and Roy Hargrove).

He was founder and director of the World Percussion Project, a program that took American professionals, students, and teachers abroad for intensive study of music and culture. The project has taken participants to Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Bahia, Brazil and Ghana, West Africa. His musical journeys also took him to Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Trinidad, the Philippines, and Thailand.

As a classical percussionist he performed with the North Carolina Symphony, Pacific Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. Carney was been featured as a steel pan soloist with several symphony orchestras including the Virginia Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Tulsa Philharmonic, Modesto Symphony, New Mexico Symphony, Wichita Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony Orchestra performing his own compositions.

Michael Carney was born in 1952 in Palmyra, New York. He earned degrees in percussion performance from East Carolina University, the Eastman School of Music, and North Texas State University. He also studied at the International Center for African Music and Dance in Ghana, and the Oficina de Investigaçaõ Musical and Rio Gruppo Percussaõ in Brazil. He is survived by his wife Grace and their daughter Jasmine, Nikolaus and Noelle and their mother Jann, his mother Jan, stepmother Shirley, brother Brian, and sisters Debbie and Tricia.